Curses & Cupcakes (A Stella Storm Cozy Witch Mystery Book 1)

by Amy Casey

  But again. I wasn’t exactly the sort of person who did things by the book. Even less so now I knew who they had in custody.

  Because I’d looked him in the eye. I’d used the truth serum on him, and he’d told me that he hadn’t killed Krissy, and that he hadn’t had anything to do with Pedro’s death, either. All he was guilty of was plotting to kill Krissy’s other boyfriend, Mark. Mark who was still out of town. Mark who nobody seemed to be paying any attention to—who seemed to have slipped under the radar.

  But why?

  Why had he slipped under the radar?

  What secrets was he hiding?

  There was something else, too. Something bothering me. And that was the side effects of the truth serum.

  I’d read the warnings. The fact that although it could spark immediate truth-telling, when it was wearing off, it could spark temporary psychosis, usually manifesting in a reversal of the truth.

  And if this truth serum had manifested as a reversal of the truth in Peter… then that meant he might just have confessed to something he hadn’t done.

  Which when coupled with the traces of Hemlock and Valerian discovered in his house, didn’t look good for him. At all.

  Right now, as I stood in the reception area of the police station, right by the front desk, I was waiting. Waiting for DI Steve Burke. Because I had to speak to him. I had to tell him the truth I knew. Peter wasn’t the murderer. Besides, the square wasn’t complete yet. Arresting him, charging him, closing the investigation, none of those were going to save the final two victims. They were only going to delay things. And I couldn’t allow things to be delayed.

  The second I saw Steve step out of the door by the side of the reception desk, I stood to my feet right away.

  I saw the way he looked at me. Saw the way he rolled his eyes and sighed. “Stella, we’ve already talked about—”

  “Peter’s not the killer,” I said.

  He stopped, then. Stood still and looked at me through narrowed eyes. And I realised the mistake I’d made. There was no way I could know who’d been arrested. I mean, I could pretend word had just got out. Word was bound to get out, after all.

  But I wasn’t even interested in pretending anymore.

  “How did you—”

  “I know what it looks like,” I said. “I know about the Hemlock levels in Krissy’s bloodstream. And I know Peter is guilty of buying a large haul of Valerian concoction from Collette and spiking it with Hemlock. But that’s all he’s guilty of. He didn’t use it. It wasn’t for Krissy. It was for… it was for Mark. He wanted to get him out of the picture. He’s not a nice person for that. He’s far from a saint for that, but he’s not our killer.”

  Steve looked at me like he knew something was amiss. Like he already knew, deep down, that there had to be a reason why I knew all this information and why I had these suspicions. But at the same time, I sensed desperation. Desperation to get to the bottom of this case. To solve this crime. Because the town of Goosridge demanded it.

  “You might think you know everything there is to know about this case, Stella. I don’t know how you know some of the things you know, but believe me, we’ll cross that bridge when it comes to it. But there are things going on beyond your understanding—”

  “Screw my understanding,” I said. I noticed a few people lift their heads, a few of the workers behind the desk looking at me and looking at Steve as if I was some kind of nuisance, one that they were wondering whether to get rid of. “What matters here is what I know. I know Peter didn’t kill Krissy, Steve. And I know he didn’t kill Pedro, either.”

  “Pedro?” Steve said.

  “See. You still don’t even know his real damned name even though I’ve told you already. He isn’t called Daryl. That was an alias he was going by. He was an investigator. A paranormal investigator for some wacky conspiracy magazine. He was using an alias. Investigating me, initially. But he knew stuff about the murder. He knew what was happening. He died trying to investigate it… trying to save this town. And if you didn’t already know that then God help you solving this case.”

  I saw the way Steve looked at me then. I saw the bitterness in his eyes. The disdain in his eyes.

  But somewhere inside, I also saw that desire to understand. That sense of inadequacy. I felt bad for belittling him. Of course I did. But this wasn’t a time for feelings. This wasn’t a time for worrying about what other people thought.

  I steadied my focus on Steve and thought about embracing my magic to delve deep into his thoughts, to twist him and convince him to see things how I saw them. But I was weak, and I didn’t have time.

  “Please,” I said. “The killings, they’re ritualistic. Look into the history of this town. Seventy-seven years ago, the same thing happened. Four murders. All within close proximity.”

  “That’s enough,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Someone get her out of here.”

  “No,” I said, as two guards walked towards me. “You have to look into the ritual. The square. There’s—there’s going to be four killings. More people are going to die and you’re—”

  “You aren’t to come back here again,” Steve said, looking me right in the eye. “You aren’t to step a foot anywhere near here again. If you do, you will be arrested and you will be issued with an anti-social behaviour order.”

  “An ASBO?” I said, as the guards grabbed me. “You’re actually going to issue me with an ASBO? Can you even, like, do that? I mean, is it still even a thing?”

  “You’d better believe it,” Steve said. “And you’d better believe something else, too. I definitely don’t hug hoodies.”

  Wow. A bit corny, but effective enough.

  The guards pulled me out of the police station, towards the door. I dug in my heels. Thought about casting a spell so they couldn’t shift me at all. But it was in vain. I wasn’t strong enough for that. I was kidding myself if I thought I was anywhere near strong enough. Besides, it was foolish. My magic was a secret. I had to keep it that way.

  And Mary would grill me if I didn’t.

  Hell. She was going to grill me anyway.

  I tumbled outside the police station. Staggered back to my feet. Looked up at Steve as he stood by the door.

  “Stay away,” he said.

  And for a moment, just a moment, I thought I saw something in the eyes of the man who, face it, I couldn’t deny I’d fancied once upon a time.

  I thought I saw something I’d been trying to push away for a long time.

  And I thought that something was the very thing I was dreading.

  Guilt.

  Chapter 35

  Well, you’ve really gone and screwed things up with Steve now, hun.”

  It was mid-afternoon and I was on my break at Witchy Delights. Outside, the clouds were thickening, threatening rain. A few people had gathered in here to shelter, including Maisie Wilkinson and her annoying wailing baby. I knew I should be more patient with the kid. I was a terror too when I was younger, apparently. But right now I was hardly being given the best opportunity to be patient. Not after everything that had happened. Not with all the things that were welling up.

  I looked around at Witchy Delights and it felt out of focus, somewhat. Like I was sleepwalking my way through life at the moment. Like nothing that was occurring was really… well, real.

  I took a deep breath of the coffee fumes as I sat there opposite Mary and I felt like opening my heart to her. To letting her in on everything, where I was at, and all that. I’d only really told her that I was convinced the person they had in custody wasn’t the actual killer, and that I’d been kicked out of the police station for my sniffing around.

  And Mary wasn’t exactly sympathetic towards me for that. Far from it, in fact.

  “Really,” I said. “My invented relationship with Steve is the least of my concerns right now.”

  Mary sighed and puffed out her lips. “This is what always happens with you. You get close to someone and then you get weird.”
r />   “I get weird?”

  “Yeah. You get weird. Like, really weird.”

  “Well thanks for the words of support. But really, my weirdness or lack thereof of weirdness is the least of my concerns right now.”

  “So come on. What is it that has you so certain that the police have screwed up?”

  I sighed. I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or not that Mary was making me go over things all over again. But hey. My teeth were sunk deep into this case now. I had to be grateful I had an opportunity to work things over in my mind again.

  “So this is where I’m at,” I said. “Krissy was found dead in Janice’s back yard. Her ghost tells me she was murdered by… well, she doesn’t know. Even though her body is peppered with stab wounds, the actual cause of death is poisoning. It looks like the stab wounds were done post-death, which matches up with this ritual of Bathala that I’ve read about that recurs every seventy-seven—”

  “Jesus, Stella,” Mary said. “I know you say I’m a chatterbox sometimes but slow down. Really.”

  I took a breath. I knew Mary was right. “Collette told me that Pedro had bought all those Valerian supplies, but really she was just deflecting to protect Peter, who really bought the stuff. He laced it with Hemlock, out of desperation more than anything.”

  “So Peter had the poison. The poison that was found in Krissy’s bloodstream. Simple, right?”

  “I wish it were that simple. But I asked Peter. I… I looked him in the eye and I asked him and he told me it wasn’t him. He told me why he’d bought that concoction. Who he’d bought it for.”

  “And you believed him?”

  I frowned. “I have no reason not to believe him. I mean, I used my truth serum on him.”

  “Your truth serum?”

  “It’s… a complex process. A magic-y process. You wouldn’t understand.”

  Mary shrugged. “What I do understand is that you’ve always been ropey with your magic.”

  “Ropey with my magic?”

  “I’m just saying. Before all this murder grimness happened you were always, ‘ooh, I’m rubbish, I wish I was better with my spells!’”

  “I never said that.”

  “You did. You were always moaning. So I’m just saying…”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Well. Don’t take this personally or anything, but maybe your truth serum didn’t work?”

  I shook my head. “Impossible.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well. I could… I could just tell.”

  “Go on. How could you tell?”

  “The way he was looking at me.”

  A smile crept to the corners of Mary’s mouth.

  “What?” I said.

  “The way he was looking at you? Surely your witchy books have a far more stringent process for checking whether things have worked or not than that.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  Mary sighed. “They found her necklace broken to pieces in his home, Stella. That’s… that’s pretty damning.”

  I shook my head. “Something’s gone wrong. I don’t understand why, not truly. But something’s…”

  Before I could finish, Mary reached her hands across the table and grabbed mine.

  “Stella, I’m saying this as your friend. But I’m worried about you. I’m worried about how caught up you’re getting with all this. I mean, these cupcakes. They’re delicious. Annabelle’s doing a cracking job with them. But they’re not Stella’s cupcakes. I want to live in a world where Stella’s cupcakes are there to brighten up my day again. Don’t you want to live in that world too?”

  I could feel the temptation of the life Mary was posing to me drawing me back into its warm arms. I could see how obsessed I’d grown with this case, now I sat back and really examined it. And I wanted out. I wanted back to my normal life; the nice little cushy inane life that I’d been so convinced I wanted more than anything. Because Mary was right. Cupcakes were my strength, not curses. Witchy Delights was my strength. Nosying into the lives of others who sat in my cafe—that was my strength.

  I looked up and into Mary’s eyes. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was really staring into them, crystal clear. I felt like I was really seeing.

  And then I saw someone rushing towards the door of Witchy Delights. It was Richard Harbour. Tall, sleek Richard Harbour, who I’d caught having a drink with Sarah Seeks in here just days ago—days ago that felt a whole lifetime ago.

  I saw the concern on his face. I saw the terror in his eyes. I saw him looking broken down, like I’d never seen him before.

  Mary turned and looked at him first. “Richard?” she said. “Is everything okay?”

  He looked at Mary first, like he was in a trance. I could smell the sweat coming from his body. I could almost hear the words he was about to say, but I didn’t want to accept them, didn’t want to believe them.

  And then he looked right at me and he said the words.

  “It’s Sarah,” he said. “She’s… she’s dead. Murdered. Just like the others. Just—just like the others.”

  Chapter 36

  One thing.

  If you’re going to pretend the murder of a woman isn’t in any way connected to two other murders in a town where the most eventful thing that happens is a cat getting stuck up a tree every now and then, you’d better prepare yourself for some serious questioning.

  And another thing.

  You’d better make damned sure you don’t let the lover of the victim see the crime scene and realise for himself that indeed it was exactly the same kind of murder as the other two.

  The afternoon clouds were thicker. The rain fell in heavy bursts. The police tape had been erected, but Sarah’s body was in such an open space that it didn’t matter—and lo and behold, the inept police force might consider erecting a tent to cover it, or something.

  All of the crowds had been cleared off from the site, but I could see it. I was invisible. Using the last of my strength to conjure up some much-needed invisibility, to look over the crime scene.

  And as I stood here on this hill on the outskirts of the town, I could see the body clearly.

  Sarah had been erected on a tree. Her body was peppered with those stabs, just like the two other bodies.

  I didn’t know when this murder had happened. No doubt the police would try and spin it and pretend that it’d happened before they’d taken Peter into custody. Or if they couldn’t do that, well, I wouldn’t put it beyond them at this stage to frame somebody else for it and blame it as a copycat killing.

  I had the sense that Steve knew damn well that I was right about the old ritual killings and how they were repeating themselves. He just didn’t quite understand it yet. I mean, it was a lot to ask, after all. It was a reach. I felt like he was on the brink of understanding, but at the end of the day, keeping people calm and in order was more important to him.

  Just a pity that everyone saw the police cover up for what it was now, and that it’d sparked gossip across the town.

  I looked down towards Sarah’s body. And part of me felt like I was waiting for something. Waiting for her ghost to show herself. Waiting for her to come over to me, to tell me exactly what’d happened, exactly how she’d died.

  But even if that did happen—slim chance as it may be—I felt totally worthless. Because even if I did learn the truth, the police weren’t going to want to hear it. Steve was so focused on solving this case alone, on proving his worth, that he didn’t want me, a woman who ran a novelty Witchy treats shop, solving it all for him.

  Part of me wondered if perhaps what Mary had said was right. That I should just give up. Allow the police to go about their work.

  But then I thought about the people I cared about. And I thought about what I’d do if something happened to one of them. And that was literally the only thing keeping me going now, the only thing stopping me from giving up.

  The worry that something could happen to Dad. To Annab
elle. To Mary.

  I couldn’t give up knowing that those things were a possibility.

  I couldn’t give up knowing that someone else’s dad, Annabelle, Mary were just as at risk as they were.

  I took a deep breath as I looked at Sarah’s body some more. The square. The square was close to being closed. Just one more victim. One more, and it was over.

  Still, something bothered me. Something got to me. Pedro’s death. The only man who’d died in this entire sequence of events. And not just this sequence of events, either—the sequence of events from seventy-seven years ago, too.

  There had to be something in it. I felt like it was on the tip of my tongue, but I was just about missing it.

  Those words he’d said when I’d seen his ghost. The washing up. The daisies.

  The references, they were familiar. I knew them from somewhere.

  But where?

  Where?

  And what did any of them mean?

  I saw movement up ahead. The police cars. Out of one of them climbed Steve. And as much disdain as I felt towards him for the way he’d treated me, I sympathised, too. Because he was under just as much pressure as anyone else. No, perhaps even more pressure. Because it was his job to reassure this town. It was his job to bring someone to justice. It was his job to convince people that they were safe in their beds at night, all over again, even after everything that’d happened.

  I thought about going down there. I thought about confronting him. I thought about just telling him the truth, the whole truth, and everything about myself—hopefully without him laughing me off this time, or dismissing me.

  But in the end I found myself doing something else.

  I took a deep breath.

  Sighed.

  And I turned away.

  I’d tried using my abilities to get to the bottom of this case. I’d used the truth serum on Peter, and it had backfired. I wasn’t good enough. My dad was right. I shouldn’t get involved in matters like these.

  There was nothing for me here.

  All I could do was work double time to crack this case before the final murder occurred.